8 Things that Drive Me Crazy in Email — all happened THIS WEEK
Just edging out taxes as the top thing NO ONE wants more of, is email. I’d typically steer clear of such a lightweight subject, but I had an especially ludicrous week in email. I also thought it’d be fun to put these in rank order. And who knows, maybe some reader was just handed their first email address and doesn’t know to not do one of these hateful eight.
8. The agenda request This is the lowest on the list because it may be controversial, and I don’t want to offend the Agenda Stans out there. But when I sent an invite where the body read “At this meeting, we will debrief X, and Y, and decide on Z,” for some reason I wasn’t expecting someone to respond with this question: Is there an agenda for this meeting. Okay… I get it. There are far too many meetings and we should ensure they have a purpose to not waste people’s time. But there is no magic to the word “Agenda.” If the purpose is established, do we really need to waste someone’s time with rigid adherence to semantics? Or is it more that people just don’t read the body of invites and, seeing no attachment, assumed there was no purpose? Was it too passive-aggressive for me to send an attachment with the same sentence and the word Agenda as a header? Probably, but like I said, it was an especially bad week.
7. The curiously blunt open-ended question There are a lot of reasons I can’t get into specifics here but imagine a message with a single question that could be answered in anywhere from a few words to a novel-length treatise. Something like “Bill — Why is a chicken?” except a hell of a lot less fun. My main problem with this (and I have tons of problems with this) is there is a tacit communication of urgency with any hyper-direct, unqualified query. And email is NOT the medium for urgency. As it turns out, when asked When do you need to know this, the response revealed it was not only non-urgent but the original question was not what the individual wanted to ask. There could be a lesson in here about asking for clarification but Why? Why should the burden of being a responsible communicator ever fall on the person who is not initiating communication?
6. The new time proposal. I’m not going to say there is a special corner of hell reserved for people who propose a new time for an invite that goes out to over twenty people. I will say if you’re proposing a new time, you should ideally look at the scheduler tool to see if the new time works for at least one other person besides yourself. And when you see dozens of names there, you should stop, x out of the invite, and just decline.
5. The No Context Add. Don’t you love it when you’re added to an email thread ten messages in without any note as to why, or what you’re expected to add to the situation? Me neither. The theme here is lack of consideration — this sender is so locked into the dialogue they’re a part of, they imagine it will immediately translate to anyone else.
4. The ludicrously late reply. Back in October, I sent a message asking individuals to volunteer for something by November 10th. I kid you not, I got a reply this week (it’s late May) saying “Sorry that I missed this. sounds interesting.” What am I supposed to do with this? I’m not saying that one can never communicate on a subject a long time past the original message. I am going to say that communication CANNOT be my response to the email.
3. The complete subject change. Truth is I’m fine not getting a response to an email. I’ve been at this a minute, so I get it. No hurt feelings here I know how to track folks down by another means. I’m not fine with outright hijacking a thread with another topic. This happens either out of confusion or outright disregard. I’m going to say that both are easily avoided. Like I said, I’m fine with not responding. If you are going to, it should be because you have found a moment to get your wits about yourself and think on a subject. There’s no need to leap to conclusions on what the topic is and hastily respond with off-topic nonsense.
2. The reply all There’s been a lot of ink spilled about the annoyance of reply all pile-on. It’s probably the most griped about email behavior. So why does it still happen? My belief is that a level of comfort develops amongst a group and people allow themselves to forget how gauche this action is and think Hell, I’m amongst friends. Let me correct this sentiment right here. You’re NEVER amongst friends when sending email. In a face-to-face dialogue or instant message thread? Maybe. But no one who hasn’t specifically asked you for an email wants an email from you.
1. The wrong name (addressing someone with) I can’t with this one. I mean, calling someone by the wrong name in person happens. But by email? The name is right there in front of you. And you don’t have to use a name at all! I genuinely found this, which has only happened twice in my remembrance, funny at first. But slowly I worked myself into a rage at the total lack of regard this shows. I mean, you have to actually put in some effort here. If they just didn’t know who I was, no name or transposing the one in front of you would work. If it was a name that started with the first couple of letters, I could dismiss it as “fingers getting a head of brain.” The only explanation is that they have been going about with this other name in mind as my name and then, given this miraculous opportunity to learn my actual name, they cast it aside and just came out with this other name.
